Thus, there is a new track of ‘history’ that we must understand as being situated inside the previous track of deep history. This new track has a different calibration of humans and Earth, or Nature and Society, than the one that has been assumed previously.

This new track can be called ‘geohistory’ and contrasts with ‘history’: ‘le rythme de l’histoire et celui de la géohistoire’.

The error played out by the ecological movement

The ecological movement wants to make use of the available science to prompt humans to do something about the threat of climate change.

However, they are misinterpreting what the science itself is telling them, namely, that the answer is not as simple as humans acting:

In doing so, the movement ends up doing nothing but parodying the old religious settlement, that is, Religion One (the concept given by the Gifford Lectures): the ‘Dieu-qui-voit-tout-et-qui-englobe-tout des temps anciens’. This is not a programme of action but of dis-inhibition.

Ecological science

By contrast, the ecological movement should be thinking in terms of a science which understands its implication in politics, that is, Nature Two.

The ‘data’ provided by the science of Nature Two (or, better, we might call this its ‘sublata’, which implies its generation via [REF] will not take the form of an ‘énoncé constatif’ (that is, a raw statement of fact, what Latour calls ‘matters of fact’). Rather, it will take the form of an ‘énoncé performatif’, demanding political assimilation and action.

Thus, whenever there is true science, that is Nature Two, we will find a link between ‘being moved’ (émouvoir) and ‘moving in response’ (mettre en mouvement). True science will prompt compositional action in the ones receiving it.

Serres

Michel Serres is the first proclaimer of the earth as a ‘fully-fledged actor’ and therefore of Nature Two.

He is prescient of the absurdity of the Modern bifurcation of Nature and Culture, object and subject.

This is exhibited in the comparison of Galileo (Nature One) and Serres (Nature Two):

Galileo pronounces ‘and yet it moves’ (et pourtant la Terre se meut): he thus reveals himself as a representative of Nature One and therefore of Modernity. This is because, for him, the world moves but does not act: ‘elle avait un mouvement, mais pas un comportement’.

Serres pronounces ‘and yet it is moved’ (et pourtant la Terre s’émeut): he thus reveals himself as representative of Nature Two, that is nature mingled with human activity and therefore of nonmodernity. This is because, for him, both the world and humans move and act all the time: ‘c’est cette même subversion des positions respectives du sujet et de l’objet’.

In fact, given that the old certainties of the human position in nature are now gone, what’s needed are new mechanisms of composition, which Latour here calls ‘political’: ‘il faut se préparer à refaire de la politique’.

Total war

The disruption caused by the collapse of the Modern bifurcation does not promise to be peaceful or easily-handled. Rather, in a very important phrase, Latour suggests it will provide: ‘un état de guerre généralisé’, the non-state deterioration of politics that Schmitt suggested came about following the end of the nomos in the twentieth-century.

2 thoughts on “Notes on Face à Gaïa (Lecture 2)”

If we are talking of a process of negotiation, if we are talking of a learning process between moderns and the others, when will the others enter in the process? Latour seems to set up all the problem by himslef. How can he?